Quite a few noob questions!

[EddScott]

Hi there!

I'm looking for a way to build remote replication of a file server in one office to multiple locations.

The file server at the moment runs WinXP - it just serves the other XP machines word, excel, tiffs and pdfs.

I've bought a QNAP 219P+ with the idea of placing one of these in each remote location.

What I'd like is for each remote location to sync to the file server in the office. So each location has the same files.

If I'm using Freenas 8, I assume I'd have to remove XP from the file serving machine? No real point in having dual boot.

Would Freenas 8 work with the QNAP NAS and use rsync together? Theres windows rsync available and I've managed to get one to play ball with the QNAP but it needed my involvement to help it along. I'm really looking for a system thats as reliable as possible for the remote locations. Hence thinking Freenas might be a best solution.

I take it it wouldn't be an issue for the file server in the office to be running Freenas and still happily serve the local XP machines the word, excel etc files?

Any help and advice really appreciated.

Many thanks

 

[jgreco]

The real question in any replication environment is how writes get handled.

If your main office has a bunch of documents stored on a central FreeNAS box, and you are syncing these out to some QNAP's, the remote offices are dealing with a copy on the QNAP. Are they making changes to the file? Are they likely to be making changes to the same files? What happens when Remote A and Remote B both edit the same file?

Making any intelligent statement about the feasibility of replication is impossible without a fairly thorough understanding of issues such as these.

 

[EddScott]

Thanks for the reply.

The remote locations won't be changing the files - they are Word files that have standard paragraph that we use for our letters. The remote locations will be creating thier own new files (new word/excel docs and pdf scans)

The remote locations will be backing up to the central file server (so head office has a copy of the remote locations documents)

Thinking about it I'm not sure replication is the best option for us. I think perhaps if we have a NAS box in the office with the files on I could set up a cloud for the NAS box and just have the remotes look at the cloud for the files and then schedule the remotes to backup overnight/weekend.

I need to ask some question on the QNAP NAS but for some odd reason I'm not getting a user activation email.

 

[jgreco]

You've got a best-case scenario, then, as long as you can guarantee no filename collisions. Adding documents into a shared environment can be done through careful use of rsync and the proper selection of flags. I am guessing (because I haven't tried) that you can drive the entire process from a single FreeNAS box, as long as the QNAP can support rsync, which it looks like they do. It looks to me like the built-in rsync support on FreeNAS may not be able to fetch data from remote, so you may be best off writing a script rather than trying to use the GUI, but I see no reason it cannot be done fairly easily.

 

[matieo]

Hi, we needed to do that (lots of rsync's centralised from a windows box) and ended up developing our own app to do it. It should do exactly what you want, easily, and with central administration/monitoring.

Windows Rsync : Yintersync